


Truth Be Told

by Jennistar



Category: Atlantis (UK TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Or pre-Jason/Pythagoras, friendship fic, whatevs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 09:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennistar/pseuds/Jennistar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the many months he’d been in Atlantis, Jason had often wondered when his friends were going to crack and demand some answers...And he knew the time had come now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth Be Told

In the many months he’d been in Atlantis, Jason had often wondered when his friends were going to crack and demand some answers. They had very noticeably not pressed him for any of his past history from the start, and even when Jason had accidentally let something slip, they’d never questioned it. They’d often shown confusion at his complete lack of knowledge of their rites and customs, but even this they’d eventually accepted. It was an instant display of trust that Jason never really felt like he’d properly earned, and he’d always suspected the time would come when he would have to tell all.

And he knew the time had come now, in the aftermath of Medusa’s horrific change and subsequent disappearance.

Hercules and Pythagoras were the complete opposites of each other. It was probably why they were such good friends, beneath all the arguing and bluster. Hercules was one for making a show, being loud, rough and to the point. Pythagoras stood in the background and observed, and thought, and planned. Jason liked to think that he was somewhere between these two extremes – he often stood back and watched (if only because he barely knew what people were talking about sometimes) but if something affected him deeply, he would come to the fore.

But everything seemed to have changed this evening. On the walk back home, Hercules was the silent one, the one in deep thought, and Pythagoras was being the chatterbox.

“It will be fine, you’ll see,” he said, as they finally reached the steps to home. “We saved Medusa once, we can do it again. There is no reason to despair, my friend.”

His voice was as certain and steady as it had always been, but Jason had been standing by Pythagoras when Medusa had revealed herself, and had felt him quiver when she said she was cursed. He glanced at Pythagoras, but the man wasn’t looking at him, keeping his eyes instead on Hercules’s downcast face.

“Pythagoras is right,” Jason said aloud, while Pythagoras opened the door. “If a curse can be placed, it can be lifted.” And then he remembered the promise he had made to Circe, the curse he was doomed with, and the words turned to ash in his mouth. He coughed awkwardly.

They stepped into the cold, dark house. The box was still lying on the floor, where Medusa had dropped it. At the sight of it, Hercules froze, suddenly as still as the stone men in the street outside.

Pythagoras faltered. “Tomorrow,” he said quickly, “We’ll go to – ”

“Please,” Hercules interrupted. “Just stop.”

His voice was dull and wearier than Jason had ever heard it, and the sound of it made Jason reach out instinctively and take his arm.

“Hercules,” he found himself saying more sternly. “We will find a way. You can’t lose hope.”

Hercules withdrew his arm from Jason’s grip, but gently. “Leave me be,” he said, and drifted slowly towards his room.

Pythagoras hovered nervously by Jason’s shoulder. “What do we do?” he whispered.

Hercules went into his room and closed the door softly behind him.

Jason said, “We leave him be.”

A short silence fell over them. Pythagoras sighed and glanced over the house, which had been spotless a few days ago and was now burnt and filthy. He bent down and very carefully picked up the box. “What in Hades do we do with this?” he murmured.

Jason tried not to snatch it from Pythagoras’s grasp but it was a close thing. He’d seen what the box could do and he wasn’t having anyone else touching it if he could help it.

“I’ll take it away,” he said, and a brainwave hit him. “I’ll give it to the Oracle, she’ll know where to hide it.” And he wanted a few choice words with that woman anyway.

Pythagoras nodded and gingerly handed the box to Jason. “Don’t open it,” he said.

Jason almost smiled. “No fear,” he quipped, and turned to go.

“No _._ ” Pythagoras made an aborted move towards him, and Jason saw, suddenly, his own fear reflected in his friend’s eyes, that desperation not to lose someone else beloved. He paused.

“I really mean it,” Pythagoras said, still softly, but more firmly. “Don’t open it, Jason. Please don’t.”

Jason wanted to take his hand or his arm, but he also didn’t want to drop the box. He settled for smiling reassuringly instead.

“I promise,” he swore. “I won’t.”

Pythagoras blinked, but nodded and let Jason go.

* * *

 

When Jason came back, he found Pythagoras sitting on the steps to the house. It was dark but the moon was occasionally peeking through the gathering storm clouds, enough to tarnish Pythagoras’s light hair silver and bring relief to the angles of his face. He was staring down at a shield – the same shield Jason remembered picking up earlier, the shield that Hercules had used to look at Medusa.

That was the moment when Jason knew, with an iron certainty, that he would have to say something. He hesitated, but he’d made enough noise for Pythagoras to look up and see him.

“How’s Hercules?” he asked, for something to say.

Pythagoras’s face had been hard with thought, but it softened at Hercules’s name. “It’s been silent in there. Which is worse than noise when it comes to Hercules, I think.”

Jason nodded. Hercules filled up every room he entered with the size of his personality. He was always clattering around, tripping over things, humming or muttering to himself. Even when he slept, he snored. A silent Hercules could be more worrying than anything else he said or did.

“He’ll be all right,” Jason said as optimistically as he could, because Pythagoras was looking truly miserable now. “He’s just had a shock, that’s all.”

Pythagoras nodded. “I hope so,” he said. “I’m not sure how I’d deal with a broken-hearted Hercules.” He ducked his head down again and started tracing meaningless patterns on the surface of the shield. Jason braced himself.

“You knew,” Pythagoras said at last. “You knew what she had become before anyone else did.”

There was no use denying it. “Yes,” Jason said.

Pythagoras looked up at him, and his eyes were cold. “I think it’s time you told me who you are, Jason.”

Jason had fought back his tears at the sight of the despondent Hercules, and at the news from the Oracle, but to his horror he could feel them rising up now.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he managed.

Pythagoras appeared to think for a moment. “I would trust that you were telling me the truth,” he said slowly. “If you promised it, I would trust you.”

Jason felt suddenly unbalanced. “Why?” he said. “You know nothing about me, how can you know you can trust me?”

Pythagoras smiled for the first time since Medusa’s transformation, though it was a sad smile. “I know better than anyone that someone’s past does not define them, Jason. I know that you are loyal and brave, and that you have saved my life on multiple occasions for the simple reason that you are my friend. How could I not trust you after all we’ve done together?”

Jason was suddenly speechless.

“Sit.” Pythagoras patted the step below him. “Tell me.”

Weakly, Jason went over and sat on the step below. Above him, Pythagoras’s eyes glimmered like crystal in the shifting moonlight.

“It’s difficult to explain,” he said haltingly.

“I’m listening hard,” Pythagoras gently countered.

Jason let out a shaky breath and resigned himself to losing the best friend he had ever made.

“I thought I was from the future at first,” he said, “But...certain things I know about this era don’t make sense here. I think I’m in a parallel universe – I mean,” he added at Pythagoras’s confused frown, “A sort of – another world. A world like mine, but with some things changed.” He struggled to explain what he meant. “In my world, you existed, but Hercules was a myth. A fictional character, that’s all. Atlantis as well, it was a story. Then I turn up here and it exists, and you’re here but you shouldn’t be, and you’re living with a made up character, and I just - ”

Jason swallowed hard, momentarily overwhelmed. There was a small silence.

“Did you intend to come here?” Pythagoras asked at last, quietly. His voice was calm, and it made Jason wonder just how much he had guessed about Jason’s past already.

Jason shook his head. “I was searching for my father,” he said. “That part was true. I was in the subma – the sea – and the next I knew, I was here. And the Oracle says – ” And here he had to stop again.

Pythagoras’s hand softly came down to rest on Jason’s. He focused on the warmth of Pythagoras’s fingers and tried to calm his breathing. “It gets worse,” he croaked.

“It’s all right,” Pythagoras said quietly. “I’m right here. Take your time.”

Jason gulped in breaths of warm night air and glared up at the sky until his eyes stopped prickling with tears. “She says I’m here for a reason,” he said at last, and he was glad to hear his voice was at least steady. “She says I have to kill Medusa, Pythagoras, or I – or the gods will kill – ”

His voice failed him again. Pythagoras’s hand tightened on his. “Kill who?” he asked.

“Everyone,” Jason whispered. “All of Atlantis, it will be destroyed.”

There was a long, horrible silence.

“Well,” said Pythagoras said, after a while. “That certainly is a lot you haven’t told us.”

This time the tears were coming and there was nothing Jason could do to stop it. “I’m sorry,” he said thickly, “I just didn’t want you and Hercules to abandon me, you’re my only friends and I – I – ”

And then suddenly Pythagoras was sitting next to him rather than above him, and he was looking Jason full in the face, and Jason forgot his tears altogether.

“We are not going to abandon you,” Pythagoras said, and his voice was firm. “We would never have done that and we never will, Jason, you have to understand that.”

Pythagoras’s expression was sterner than Jason had ever seen it. He faltered. “But I’ve caused you both so much trouble,” he protested.

Pythagoras nodded. “True,” he said. “But life is certainly more fun with you around.”

Jason found himself smiling before he knew what he was doing. He glanced away from his friend’s all-seeing gaze. “I can’t,” he said. “Kill Medusa, I just can’t.”

He didn’t know what he expected Pythagoras to do, but he certainly hadn’t expected him to smile, or to wind a comforting arm around his shoulders. “And I wouldn’t have imagined anything else of you,” Pythagoras said.

“We’ll all die because of it,” Jason reminded him.

“No,” Pythagoras argued. “We will find a way.”

It was exactly what Jason had said to Hercules earlier. Maybe it was true, he thought, maybe they would find a way. Maybe Medusa would be cured; maybe he wouldn’t have to kill her. Maybe he could even placate Circe somehow. There was bound to be a way, and he would still have his friends no matter what.

He sighed and let himself relax into Pythagoras’s grip. His shoulder should have been thin, Jason thought, since the man was all skin and bones, but he was surprisingly comfortable. Maybe it was a talent. Pythagoras had spent years comforting people. The lost and the abandoned were drawn to Pythagoras like flies to honey.

“Best thing I did was hang off your balcony,” Jason found himself drawling tiredly.

“Oh,” Pythagoras said, “That reminds me. I fell off it today as well.”

Jason huffed out a laugh. “We’ll have to erect a revolving door,” he said.

Pythagoras hummed in confusion. “A what?”

Jason smiled against his friend’s shoulder. “I have an awful lot to teach you,” he said.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of an AU, because I suspect Jason won't admit all in the next episode, I just needed some hurt/comfort after that last sad episode :( I hope you enjoyed! x


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